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Military
For the article on the U.S. Army on the Island, see here This article lists all the military-related aspects of Lost. This mainly concerns national militaries off the Island, but the survivors also considered forming an army on the Island. Character involvement with the military } * When asked by Charles Widmore, during a job interview for the Widmore Corporation, whether he has any "military experience" Desmond said he doesn't, but later stops to stare at a recruiting poster for the Royal Scots outside an army recruiting office in London. According to February 20th, 2007 Official Lost Podcast, this event was in 1996. * This implies that Desmond joined the British army relatively late, some time after leaving university. * Served in the Royal Scots Regiment of the British Army (logo seen to the right; subsequently merged into "The Royal Regiment" in 2006) where he reached the rank of Lance Corporal. * Desmond was imprisoned in Southway Garrison in Essex and dishonourably discharged from the British army on April 4th, 1999. * Speaking of Her Majesty's Army, Kelvin says to Desmond, "Tell me, Desmond, why'd you leave that nice old lady's army? Oh, I remember now. You got kicked out because you couldn't follow orders." * Desmond is shown undergoing his basic training for the Royal Scots at Camp Millar, north of Glasgow, where his Sergeant disciplines his whole squad, including his friend Billy, because Desmond's flashes make him late for a morning roll call. * Desmond's regiment was deployed in Iraq. However, he must have been a member of the military for a few years some time between 1996 and 1999, in-between the two Gulf Wars (Timeline:pre-crash). * According to an Official Lost Podcast a Desmond flashback in a future episode will show what happened during his time in the military. Official Lost Podcast/February 20, 2007 |- style="background-color: #d6d6ff; vertical-align: top;" ! Kelvin Inman | * Said "I was a 'spook' for 10 years"; unknown which agency--CIA or other. * Was responsible for convincing Sayid to torture Tariq. * Desmond mentions that Kelvin "left" the army (whereas Desmond was "kicked out"). When asked why he left, Kelvin answers, "Because men followed my orders." |- style="background-color: #d6d6ff; vertical-align: top;" ! Sayid Jarrah | * Was a Communications Officer for the Iraqi Republican Guard during the first Gulf War. * Tariq, whom he tortures, seems to imply his father Hassan Jarrah was a military hero, saying, "Sayid, you are a loyal soldier. The son of a great hero." * Juliet states that he was involved in some kind of shameful incident in the Iraq town of Basra. * In Outlaws, Sayid tells a story about executing a man when he was in the Iraqi army stationed in Tikrit. |- style="background-color: #d6d6ff; vertical-align: top;" ! Jin-Soo Kwon | * Jin was conscripted into the army (like all South Koreans) before he moved to Seoul. * Jin's army photo is seen on Mr. Kwon's wall. |- style="background-color: #d6d6ff; vertical-align: top;" ! John Locke | * There is no evidence that Locke was actually in the military, but he appears to fantasize about being a military commander. * Locke plays a military board game similar to Axis & Allies, is mocked by his boss for being nicknamed "The Colonel", though his work file shows no military experience. * Locke's apartment in The Man from Tallahassee has a poster on the wall displaying a number of military flash badges, headed "Special Operations Forces." * Locke's school locker contains a picture of the author and explorer Sir Richard Burton, who served as a captain in the army of the East India Company. * In , Ben mocks Locke for seeming to think he can pilot the submarine. Locke says to Ben, "For all you know, I was a commander in the Navy." * Sawyer calls Locke "Colonel Kurtz" in Confirmed Dead. In the movie Apocalypse Now, Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) was a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, who went insane and became the revered leader of a group of Cambodian villagers. His home was in a Buddist temple. |- style="background-color: #d6d6ff; vertical-align: top;" ! Martin Keamy | * According to Ben, Keamy served as a First Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps from 1996 to 2001. * Worked for several mercenary companies, doing significant work in Uganda. * Keamy appears to be leading a team of at least six mercenaries who were aboard the freighter, including Omar and Mayhew. |- style="background-color: #d6d6ff; vertical-align: top;" ! Naomi Dorrit | * It is implied that Naomi Dorrit has had military training. She describes her mission on the Island as "a high risk covert op in unstable territory." She complains of the rest of her team, "these are the wrong people for a mission like this. None of them have field experience, military training." |- style="background-color: #d6d6ff; vertical-align: top;" ! Omar | * Appeared to have military training as he was one of the six mercenaries who were aboard the freighter. |- style="background-color: #d6d6ff; vertical-align: top;" ! Mercenary team | * The mercenaries Mayhew, Kocol, Lacour and Redfern appeared to have military training as they were freighter mercenaries. |- style="background-color: #d6d6ff; vertical-align: top;" ! Miscellaneous | The following are miscellaneous minor characters who are associated with the military, * Hurley tells Sayid that he had a friend in the US Army's 104th Airborne. * Omar was Sayid's superior in Iraq. * Sam Toomey and Leonard Simms were U.S. Navy Sailors when they first heard the Numbers broadcast in the Pacific. * Eko was taken by the Nigerian militia. * A Nigerian Army soldier approached Eko after the Beechcraft takes off to see if he is alright, and returns him to the Church in Nigeria. * U.S. Soldier No. 1 and U.S. Soldier No. 2 helped transport Sayid. * Charles Widmore mentioned an admiral of the Royal Navy to Desmond, Admiral Anderson MacCutcheon, after whom the MacCutcheon brand whiskey was named. "He retired with more medals than any man before or since." Widmore pours the whiskey into two glasses shaped like the Mk2 "pineapple" hand grenade used in WWII. * The Master Sergeant discharged Desmond from the military prison at Southway Garrison. |} Items and locations Weapons * US Army Knife: First found on the Other woman Ana Lucia killed * Rifles: The Others guarding their Others' camp were using rifles that appeared to be M1As (modeled after M-14s, rifles that were standard issue well into the Vietnam War, before being largely replaced by the lighter M-16). The rifles in Swan Station were either Russian or Chinese SKS carbines. * Luger: Used by Tom to hold Kate hostage (Lugers date back to 1890, and were used by the Germans in WWII). Vehicles * Military Mercedes-Benz G-Class: Seen at Sam Toomey's house. * Drug smugglers' plane: The aircraft's call-sign prefix was shown as 5Z. This is a Kenyan military designation. * Transportation truck: A "M939 series 5-ton 6x6 United States Army logistical transportation truck" was used by Kelvin and Sam Austen to transport Sayid. * Submarine: The submarine used by the Others may be a military vehicle. The interior has been identified by fans as that of a United States Navy Gato-Class Submarine of the kind used in World War II. Locations * The Barracks are the primary residence of the Dharma Initiative on the island. * Kelvin, Sam Austen, and Sayid all meet each other during the Gulf War in Kuwait/Iraq. Cultural references Literary works * Locke flicks through the pages of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, a book set in the American civil war. * The Odyssey, an ancient literary work frequently compared to the story of Desmond and Penelope, recounts the voyages of Odysseus, a shipwrecked Greek military commander struggling to return from the battle of Troy to rescue his wife Penelope. * The novel Bad Twin refers to the possibility that the Widmore Corporation were involved in work on behalf of the military, 'other rumors hinted at classified defense contracting or private security work of questionable ethics.' Miscellaneous * Locke, Sawyer and Pickett talk about distance in "klicks" (military slang for kilometers). This implies that the people they're talking to—Sayid, Jack, and Tom respectively—are also familiar with the term. * The title of the episode stems from the strategy used by the US Military to curry the popular approval (win the "hearts and minds") of the Vietnamese people during the Vietnam War. It has become a popular term today denoting the way a society can use its military and public relations skills to conquer a country, not necessarily through brute force but through winning the "hearts and minds" of the people. The term also holds connotations with propaganda and propaganda's fictitious nature. (Wikipedia) The Lost Experience Characters * DJ Dan was a Gulf War veteran. * Alvar Hanso has military connections. His biography on the Hanso Foundation website states: *: "He first made his mark during the Second World War, providing munitions to various resistance movements around Europe. After the War, Hanso became the leading purveyor of high-technology armaments to NATO. *: "After decades of keeping the world safe through the development of sophisticated weapons systems, Hanso turned his attention to critical areas of science and technology - always searching for new ways to improve the human experience, and create a brighter future for all humanity." * M. David Benson, president of the Apollo Candy Company, served in the US army in Korea and is an associate of Alvar Hanso. * Nils Christer Benson, father of M. David Benson the founder of Apollo Candy, was a US Marine in the Second World War. The Apollo Candy website states, *: Leaving Norway, with his pregnant wife, Elli, Nils established a new life in the U.S., joining the U.S. Marine Corps in December of 1941. Sadly, however, Nils Benson lost his life on Omaha Beach just a few short years later. Apollo Candy Company DJ Dan theories It is of note that DJ Dan, in the plot of The Lost Experience, is a 'nutty' conspiracy theorist, and thus his theories and those of his callers are not always meant to be taken as canon truth for the show. They are often used as parody for real-life fan theories. In his podcasts, DJ Dan labels Alvar Hanso, "your favourite arms dealer turned mad scientist." (DJ Dan May 16 transcript). He later refers to him as "company founder Alvar Hanso, an arms dealer with ties to the original atom bomb." (DJ Dan June 8 transcript) In a later podcast DJ Dan asks, "Why are college students building electromagnetic super-weapons? Electromagnetic super-weapons, people." He continues, by suggesting students are "running research simulations for classified electromagnetic super-weapons. And when he decides, 'Hey, I'm 18, I don't need to be contributing to the corporate war machine,' they pull his scholarship." DJ Dan implies that the Hanso Foundation have abandoned a "weapons program" because of his broadcasts. He plays a tape of a student who says that the Widmore Corporation are involved in funding research intended to "simulate an electromagnetic pulse strong enough to knock a space-borne body "the moon" out of its recurring orbit." (DJ Dan May 26 transcript). Sri Lanka video * In the first part of the Sri Lanka video, Alvar Hanso states that the purpose of the DHARMA Initiative was to conduct research related to the Valenzetti Equation which he explains was developed at the behest of the U.N. Security Council in response to the nuclear threat of the Cold War. : "Your research is intended to do nothing less than save the world as we know it. In 1962, only thirteen years ago, the world came to the brink of nuclear war. The United States and the Soviet Union almost fulfilled the promise of mutual assured destruction. A promise they continue to foster through a destructive Cold War. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, both nations decided to find a solution. The result was the Valenzetti Equation. Commissioned under the highest secrecy, through the U.N. Security Council the equation is the brainchild of the Italian mathematician Enzo Valenzetti." He also states that the Valenzetti Equation relates, in part, to the military threats of nuclear, biochemical, and conventional warfare, : "It predicts the exact number of years and months until humanity extinguishes itself. Whether through nuclear fire, chemical and biological warfare, conventional warfare, pandemic, over-population... The results are chilling, and attention must be paid..." In the second part of the video, Thomas Mittelwerk responds to a question by stating that his new Hanso Foundation project is also, among other things, concerned with ending warfare, : "If you knew, with mathematical certainty, that you could end all famine, war, and poverty, what would you do? Exactly, you'd find the best way to get it done -precisely, surgically, without allowing for any more suffering than is absolutely necessary." Psychology Orientation test video The Psychology Orientation test video contains several images of explosions, including one which resembles an atomic mushroom cloud. See also *United States Army Category:Lists